Messages can be sent, via computer networks, such as the world-wide web from a transmitting source, to one or more recipients. One form of messaging is E-mail. In this one-to-many form of communication a recipient can respond not only to the sender but also at substantially the same time to all other recipients identified on that particular message. Conventional E-mail systems provide a queue for incoming messages. A user can access the messages and respond to same at his/her convenience. Other parties to whom the message was addressed, or who were copied on the message can communicate with the sender and also with each other. Where one sender has communicated with numerous individuals, that sender would receive all responses at his/her queue for further processing. Depending on the circumstances, an unacceptably long time might elapse before the sender could address all of the responses.
Instant messaging systems provide a desirable alternate to conventional E-mail systems. With instant messaging, one party that has logged onto the computer network such as the Internet can send a message directly to another party who is also on-line. The two parties can communicate bi-directionally without using their respective E-mail systems and associated queues. Public instant message systems are available from a variety of sources.
The known instant message systems, however, faulted when attempting to send messages to a large group of users or among large members of a list. More so, these solutions required the importation of names into something similar to an address book in order to effectively communicate with a user and that may not always be desired due to limitations in the numbers of addresses that may be stored in an address book.